At Ka’anapali beach, it’s always the same. Coastal erosion threatens a swimming pool or a walkway or some coconut trees and emergency permits are handed out like fliers for a rock concert. No one could have predicted that the erosion that took place last year at the south end of Ka’anapali beach would be the worst anyone had seen in more than 20 years. But after more than a decade of similar events, it’s difficult to explain why a couple of Ka’anapali resorts had their sandbags drifting as far as Kapalua and Lahaina Harbor (despite their crew of sandbag wranglers), and as many as 60 steel plates placed along the shore without the approval, let alone the knowledge, of the county department that manages the coastal zone.
Runaway Sandbags
“Officers stopped counting after 100 bags,” wrote Maui Division of Conservation and Resource Enforcement officer Randy Awo in an October 31 email to his Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) co-workers regarding the sandbag circus at Ka’anapali, Maui.
For days, the DLNR had been receiving complaints from the public, as well as state and federal agencies, about runaway sandbags, placed by the Ka’anapali Ali’i condominium and Maui Marriott hotel, at Ka’anapali beach. Last October, according to a broadcast email from Maui resident Jonathan Starr, the resorts had placed more than 40,000 sandbags at the shore to protect their improvements, which, in the view of many Maui residents, had been built too close to the shoreline.
Starr stated in his email that there were thousands of empty sandbags on the reef off Ka’anapali and asserted that they were “damaging the coral reefs and marine life such as the turtles that abound at Black Rock.”
Responding to the various complaints, on Halloween, DOCARE officers ran jet skis in a grid search pattern from the Ka’anapali Ali’i to the Sheraton, which is at the north end of the beach. According to Awo, DOCARE officers observed about 150 to 200 torn bags “either lodged on the reef or suspended in ocean currents and drifting to unknown locations.”
The bags, mostly burlap, but some made of nylon, plastic or fiberglass were found at depths ranging from four feet to 30 feet and would have to be retrieved using SCUBA gear, Awo wrote.
Jeff Halpin, president of Classic Resorts, which manages the Ka’anapali Ali’i, had told Awo that the Ali’i’s divers were spending four hours a day retrieving bags from the shallow waters fronting the property and the nearby Whaler condo. A small kayak crew would paddle the stray bags to shore, where they were refilled and once more stacked along the Ali’i’s seaward boundary.
“Despite the hotel’s best efforts,” Awo wrote in an October 30 email, “retrieval operations are occurring in a relatively small area only during day light hours. The ease in which the bags are being tossed into the ocean makes it difficult, if not impossible, to recover every bag that enters the water. Those that do escape detection travel unknown distances and lodge onto the reef or float at the surface of the water, creating hazards to marine life as well as navigation. Because hundreds of bags are being used, there is the potential for broad adverse impacts to our ocean resources as well as its users. We are particularly concerned about the amount of bags being washed out to sea at night, when no retrieval efforts are underway.” He concluded by recommending that sandbagging, originally given emergency authorization by DLNR in July, cease indefinitely.
Steel-Plate Armor
A couple of weeks after DOCARE’s sandbag search, another swell destroyed a significant portion of the Ali’i’s sandbag wall. A follow-up inspection by Awo found that only three to six feet of grass separated the high wash of the waves from the Ali’i’s remaining coconut trees and sidewalk. After consulting with Dawn Hegger and Dolan Eversole of the DLNR’s Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands, “It was determined, (and we all agreed) that due to the looming threat of substantial property damage to the Ka’anapali Ali’i, that the conditions of the permit should be modified to allow emergency sand bagging operations to continue. It was further determined that long-term solutions must now be pursued,” Awo wrote.
DLNR Administrator Peter Young issued an amended authorization on November 13 calling for the discontinuation and cleanup of plastic bags, and requiring that any experimental controls (cargo nets, synthetic bags, etc.) be approved by the OCCL before being used.
At one point, plastic, water-filled jersey or Triton barriers – the kind used in highway medians or for walling off construction sites – were installed. While they can become quite heavy once filled with water, Eversole says it was “kind of unprecedented to use them for shoreline erosion,” and the experimental measure eventually failed.
By late November, with another significant erosional swell expected to hit Ka’anapali, Young granted a request by the Ali’i’s Halpin to install as many as 60 12-foot-tall steel plates in front of the sandbag revetments along the Ali’i and the Maui Marriott property next door.
“We share your sensitivity to hardscape on the beach, but think you will agree it was our last resort,” Halpin wrote in a November letter thanking Eversole, Hegger and Young for helping push through the emergency approvals.
“The way this started out is nobody expected this to last this long. That’s why the sandbags went in,” Eversole says of the way things at Ka’anapali had progressed. (Eversole is a coastal geologist with Sea Grant currently serving as OCCL’s coastal expert.)
There is seasonal erosion in front of the Marriott and Ali’i. Every summer, at Hanako’o Point, the beach disappears as south swells push the sand to the north end of Ka’anapali beach. This summer, although “nobody can point their finger at one thing,” Eversole says, there was unprecedented erosion. A series of south swells early in the summer pushed a large amount of sand from the area. That the swells occurred during high tides increased the “potential for transport,” he says.
“It [the sandbagging] started out on a relatively small scale to shore up some palm trees. Then it was extended and extended because the erosion wasn’t going away. We expected the beach to recover in September or October with some north swells, but it got worse.”
And just like that, the hotels graduated from sandbags to jersey barriers to steel plates.
“After the state approved the sandbags, the hotel put in hundreds of thousands of dollars to protect that sidewalk for a couple of months,” says Zoe Norcross, a Sea Grant agent on Maui. After complaints about the runaway sandbags started rolling in, Norcross continued, “it would have been difficult for that state to say take it our and let sidewalks fall in after they spent all that money to save the walkway.”
County Bypass
The Coastal Zone Management Act mandates counties to establish Special Management Areas “along the shoreline in which special controls on developments are necessary to avoid permanent losses of valuable resources and to ensure that adequate access to beaches, recreation areas and natural reserves is provided,” according to a Maui County website. The counties, therefore, require permits or approvals for many activities mauka of the shoreline.
The state of Hawai’i has a stake in what goes on makai of the shoreline. Beaches fall within the state’s Conservation District, which the state Department of Land and Natural Resources controls; and many eroded and accreted lands are owned by the state. So activities in these areas may require a Conservation District Use Permit, easements, rights of entry, or other authorizations from the Board of Land and Natural Resources or its designated authority.
In the case of the erosion control measures at Ka’anapali Ali’i, from the sandbags to the steel plates, the county was left out of the loop. When the DNLR’s Young granted emergency authorization to the Ka’anapali Ali’i to place the sandbags along its property in July, the county had not given its blessing sought before thousands of bags went in.
The Ka’anapali Beach Management Plan, which the county uses to guide activities on the beach, “specifically stated that minor structures should not be protected with hard structures (i.e. steel plates). Trees and sidewalks are considered minor structures. That is why the county did not approve sandbags,” Norcross says.
At the nearby Marriott, although some sandbags had already been laid, the Maui Planning Department gave verbal approval to use sandbags to support an eroded vertical cut, department planner Matt Niles says. While scolding the Marriott for placing sandbags on the beach without DLNR approval, an act that “could constitute a violation of Conservation District Rules,” Young gave his consent, as well. (A side note: During a July inspection of the extent of erosion at the Marriott property, DOCARE officer Stanley Okamoto found two three- to eight-inch plastic pipes, “which drains unknown liquids onto public lands,” that had been “hidden by naupaka bush and exposed during the erosion process.”)
Over the summer and into the fall, the erosion continued and representatives from both properties requested and received extensions for their revetments. But with sandbags being swept away on a regular basis, and with more swells coming, the Ka’anapali Ali’i moved to install steel plates. Young gave oral approval on November 19, with written approval issued the following day, and the Ka’anapali Ali’i finished the installation two days later. (The DLNR’s Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation, which shares management authority at Ka’anapali with the county, also approved a right of entry over the beach to allow for the installation.)
According to Niles, while the county deferred to the DLNR in terms of approvals for the Marriott, it did not do so for the Ka’anapali Ali’i. The county had no idea that steel plates would be placed until after the work had been done, he said.
“That the state would allow something like that without the county’s approval” was appalling, he told Environment Hawai’i. “Technically, they’re [the Ka’anapali Ali’i] in violation of our permits.”
As of early December, although the sand was beginning to return, the plates had been removed, and there was reportedly a couple hundred feet of beach already fronting the hotels, the county was still working on a formal response to what Niles saw as a slip up.
“I don’t think the plates did a whole lot of harm,” Niles said, but he added that it was shocking that there had been no county consultation before the state allowed a steel structure, albeit temporary, stretching some 240 feet along the beach to be installed.
Although the county has given approvals for shoreline protection measures in the past, Eversole says that in this case, since the county regulates everything mauka of shoreline, there is “kind of a gray area on where some of the bags were being placed. The majority of work, and arguably all of the work, was on state land. Some of it was on county land and the hotels should have consulted with the county, but the only communication the hotel had with the county was through me… Normally we like to work with the county. In this case we were working directly with DOBOR.”
Deja vu
Last month, Maui Mayor Alan Arakawa took a major step toward preventing future emergency situations caused by development too close to the ocean when he approved new shoreline setback rules passed in October by the Maui Planning Commission.
“By limiting the threat of coastal erosion destroying shoreline homes, the rules will reduce the need to erect other barriers that ultimately destroy beaches,” a county press release states.
The release quotes Arakawa as saying, “These new rules will benefit the community for many years to come,” but they are too late to help the resorts at Ka’anapali. Since development began in the 1960s, Ka’anapali beach has become lined with hotels (including the Hyatt Regency, the Ka’anapali Beach, the Marriott, the Royal Lahaina, the Sheraton and the Westin) and condominiums like Ka’anapali Ali’i and Villas, the Whaler and the Outrigger Eldorado Resort.
Many of the structures sit where dunes once existed, and over the decades, developers of some of these properties have created the semblance of a shoreline by irrigating naupaka and other vegetation as close to the ocean as possible.
According to Eversole, Ka’anapali beach has had a long history of slow, steady erosion that precedes development. “It’s actually a relatively stable shoreline compared to other Maui beaches….Hurricanes, tropical depressions make major changes to the shoreline but that north-south [sand migration] pattern was there before it was developed….In my opinion, the major mechanisms have not really changed much. Development hasn’t caused a change to erosion patterns.”
But because many of the buildings at Ka’anapali are so close to the shore, the effects of the seasonal movement of sand up and down the beach have become severe at times:
In January 1993, high winter swells, aggravated by Hurricane ‘Iniki, pummeled the beach fronting Ka’anapali’s Westin Maui hotel, sweeping away the protective sandbags the Westin had stacked along the beach, undercutting a shoreline walkway, and, according to the hotel’s then-managing director, threatening to undermine the swimming pool and a wing of the hotel.
With authorization from the county, the Westin had Goodfellow Bros. pile 3,350 cubic yards of rock fill, eight feet high, along the eroded scarp. The boulders were removed months later and the sand eventually returned.
In the summer of 1998, after suffering severe erosion over the winter, Maui County approved an emergency permit to install sheet piling temporarily to protect against high waves threatening the Sheraton’s swimming pool. At the time, the Planning Department said it would work with hotel management to develop a long-term solution to the problem. Also that year, a storm damaged a beach walkway fronting the Whaler and the county permitted the installation of temporary stairways.
A couple of months later, the beach fronting the Sheraton did its usual seasonal turnaround.
Minutes from a 1998 Marine and Coastal Zone Management Advisory Group meeting state, “Both hotels are expected to develop long-term plans to address their erosion problems while preserving public beach resources. A workshop on monitoring and enforcement was conducted with the Maui County Planning Commission. In a related development, the County of Maui Planning Department has become the designated enforcement authority for ensuring compliance with SMA Use Permit and Shoreline Setback Variance conditions.”
In the late 1990s, the county gave permit approvals for several improvements along south Ka’anapali – for the Hyatt Regency spa, an addition to the Ka’anapali Beach Hotel restaurant, and Ka’anapali Ali’i swimming pool improvements. Given the beach’s constant vicissitude, the Maui Planning Commission, with assistance from Maui Sea Grant and beachfront property owners and operators, decided to develop a beach management plan. A plan called the Ka’anapali Beach Restoration Management Plan by Sea Grant’s Rob Mullane was eventually completed in 2000. But while it was intended to help shoreline property owners there better deal with the seasonal erosion hazards, it did little to stem the erosion that began last summer, which, according to reports, threatened the Ka’anapali Ali’i’s swimming pool, and created a 10-foot scarp in front of a concrete path and tore down several large trees at the Marriott.
A New Beginning?
Last November, after issuing one authorization after another for sandbags, Triton barriers and, finally, steel plates, Young wrote to Halpin that the Ali’i must submit plans for short- (one month to a year), medium- (1 to 2 years), and long-term solutions to the erosion problem. He gave the Ali’i until December 19 to remove the metal sheets.
“The Department encourages more sustainable alternatives, including relocation of the threatened improvements, beach nourishment, dune restoration or buried erosion control structures,” Young wrote.
Although the sand returned and plates were removed before the December deadline, Young told Environment Hawai’i, “I saw photographs and am happy to see the sand was shifting. Now that the sand is back, we’re not going to not worry about it.” While his department’s staff had not yet discussed with the resorts any long-term plans to avoid future emergencies, he said, “We intend to work with them. They can be an example for others to do the right thing… We will come up with a plan that protects private interests and protects the beach.”
Both the Ali’i and the Marriott have enlisted the O’ahu firm Sea Engineering to help design those alternative erosion control measures. Young said he had not yet consulted with the county on any future plans.
Eversole says the hotels have already provided the department with an update on the effectiveness of each of the alternatives that had been used, but must still submit a final compliance report.
To help in the longer term, he says he has been encouraging the hotels to form a beach management district. “It’s a pseudo-association of homeowners and concerned citizens to help manage the shoreline,” he said, that could include all the hotels and the Ka’anapali Beach Resort Association. He added that he and Norcross may do a presentation for the association to discuss beach nourishment and beach management plans.
Asked for specifics on what the Ka’anapali Ali’i and Marriott may do for their properties Eversole says he and the DLNR staff are encouraging them to develop a long-term strategy.
One temporary erosion control method, which might last several years, could be to install ten-by-six-foot geotextile bags as far mauka as possible and bury them with sand. The most severe long-term solution, in terms of impacts, could be to build a seawall, he said. He emphasizes that no one has proposed to erect a seawall, and “We would like to explore other alternatives before that.” One of those alternatives might be a retreat by the hotels.
“Obviously these 30-story buildings cannot be relocated, but the pools walkways, and trees, stuff like that can be moved mauka,” he says. He adds that softening the shoreline by removing anything hard or fixed, and replacing it with high dunes and grass (instead of dirt and trees) is another option that avoids having topsoil fall into the ocean during an erosion event.
For maps of erosion control hazard areas on Maui, visit [url=http://www.co.maui.hi.us/departments/Planning/erosion.htm]http://www.co.maui.hi.us/departments/Planning/erosion.htm[/url]
— Teresa Dawson
Volume 14, Number 7 January 2004
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